Saturday, March 16, 2013

Homeschool Plans for Next Year

What are your plans for next year? There are so many choices that sometimes it is difficult to make a choice. We used a very unschooled method with our three children. Our house has always been littered with hundreds of books. Everything from dictionaries that were heavy enough the little ones couldn't pick them up to encyclopedias and how-to-books. Lots of fiction and history books and ones that centered on fish, herbs, and livestock. It wasn't unusual to find a child curled up in a chair with a book on how to build a rock wall.
We were also blessed with the ability to have lots of animals. The children helped birth lambs and baby goats. Puppies and kittens were a regular event. We raised calves and pigs and the kids helped at butcher time. My daughter would stand on a stool at the kitchen sink for hours exploring how the calves heart worked. This gave them their science classes in reality!
When one of the children exhibited an interest in a subject we made sure that the information was available. We helped them learn responsibilty and math at the same time when they raised 4-H animals and had to keep and justify expenses. For History we explored our own area. They crawled in caves where Native Americans once lived, viewed petroglyphs, and talked to the elderly about their life experiences.
A teacher friend of mine was horrified at the way our children were being educated. Now she laughs at herself and is encouraging her son to use the same method for his daughter. Everyone has a different idea of what is correct for a child. Talk to your child, what works for them? Do not be afraid to expand yours and their horizons! Have fun! Learning should be a joy that is practiced throughout a life time.